Exports grew more slowly as labor costs in China rise and aquaculture production growth slows or possibly contracts.

China is home to a huge re-processing industry, importing unprocessed fish and seafood from all over the globe and then processing it for re-export, which comprises a large share of China’s seafood imports.

Chinese imports have also surged as the country’s growing middle-class splash out on seafood imports, thanks to concerns about food safety, preference for foreign and wild-caught products, and increasing consumer choice.

But in 2018, the increase was likely mainly down to growing direct shipments to China.

“It’s part of the reason,” an importer told Undercurrent, referring to the growth in direct imports.

In recent years, the true picture of China’s seafood consumption boom has been hidden due to an illicit seafood trade across the border between northern Vietnam and southern China. According to an Undercurrent analysis, in 2016, Vietnam’s seafood imports were worth over $5bn, up from $25 million in 2001, with the majority of imports transhipped to China.

The trade blossomed to avoid Chinese imports tariffs — which are levied on imports for domestic consumption but not on raw material processed and re-exported — and inspection, but legitimate importers were undercut and a large volume of seafood imports was hidden from view.